"Lily Rosalie Violet May," said Joe, after her, softly. And everybody giggled.
A pink color spread all over Sarah Jane's face and dimpled neck; tears sprang to her eyes. She felt as if they were poking fun at something sacred; her honest childish confidence was betrayed. "Give her back to me, Joe West!" she cried.
But Joe only dandled it out of her reach, and then the bell rang. The children trooped back into the school-room, and Joe quietly slipped the doll into his pocket and marched gravely to his seat.
Every time when Sarah Jane gazed around at him he was studying his geography with the most tireless industry. She could hardly wait for school to be done; when it was, she tried to get to Joe, but he was too quick for her. He had started with his long stride down the road before she could get to the door. She called after him, but he appeared to have suddenly grown deaf. The other girls condoled with her, all but the big girl who had given the warning. "You'd ought to have listened to me," said she, severely, as she tied on her sun-bonnet in the entry. "I told you how it would be, letting a boy have hold of it."
Sarah Jane was not much comforted. She crept forlornly along towards home. Joe West's house was on the way. There was a field south of it. As she came to this field she saw Joe out there with the bossy. This bossy, which was tethered to an old apple-tree, was cream-colored, with a white star on her forehead and a neck and head like a deer. She stood knee-deep in the daisies and clover, and looked like a regular picture-calf. If Sarah Jane had not been so much occupied with her own troubles, she would have stopped to gaze with pleasure at the pretty creature.
Joe stood at her head and appeared to be teasing her. She twitched away from him, and lunged at him playfully with her budding horns.
"Joe! Joe!" called quaking little Sarah Jane.
Joe West gave one glance at her; his face flushed a burning red; then he left the bossy and went with long strides across the fields towards his home. The poor girl followed him.
"Joe! Joe!" called the little despairing voice, but he never turned his head.
Sarah Jane got past his house; then she sat down beside the road and wept. She did not know how Joe West, remorseful and penitent, was peeping at her from his window. She did not know of the tragedy which had just been enacted over there in the clover-field. The bossy calf, who was hungry for all strange articles of food, had poked her inquiring nose into Joe West's jacket pocket, whence a bit of French calico emerged, had caught hold of it, and, in short, had then and there eaten up Lily Rosalie Violet May. Joe had made an attempt to pull her by her silken wig out of that greedy mouth, but the bossy calmly chewed on.